Sudan I is one of the industry dyes and widely used in cosmetics, wax agent, solvent and textile. Sudan I has multiple toxicity such as carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, genotoxicity and oxidative damage. However, Sudan I has been illegally used as colorant in food products, triggering worldwide attention about food safety. Nevertheless, the toxicity of Sudan I on reproduction, particularly on oocyte maturation is still unclear. In the present study, using mouse in vivo models, we report the toxicity effects of Sudan I on mouse oocyte. The results reflect that Sudan I exposure disrupts spindle organization and chromosomes alignment as well as cortical actin distribution, thus leading to the failure of polar body extrusion. Based on the transcriptome results, it is found that the exposure of Sudan I leads to the change in expression of 764 genes. Moreover, it’s further reflected that the damaging effects of Sudan I are mediated by the destruction of mitochondrial functions, which induces the accumulated ROS to stimulate oxidative stress-induced apoptosis. As an endogenous hormone, melatonin within the ovarian follicle plays function on improving oocyte quality and female reproduction by efficiently suppressing oxidative stress. Moreover, melatonin supplementation also improves oocyte quality and increases fertilization rate during in vitro culture. Consistent with these, we find that in vivo supplementation of melatonin efficaciously suppresses mitochondrial dysfunction and the accompanying apoptosis, thus reverses oocyte meiotic deteriorations. Collectively, our results prove the reproduction toxicity of Sudan I for the exposure of Sudan I reduces the oocyte quality, and demonstrate the protective effects of melatonin against Sudan I-induced meiotic deteriorations.

苏丹红是工业染料之一，广泛用于化妆品、蜡剂、溶剂和纺织品。苏丹一号具有致癌性、致突变性、遗传毒性和氧化损伤等多重毒性。然而，苏丹一号被非法用作食品着色剂，引发了全球对食品安全的关注。尽管如此，苏丹 I 对生殖的毒性，特别是对卵母细胞成熟的毒性仍不清楚。在本研究中，使用小鼠体内模型，我们报告了苏丹 I 对小鼠卵母细胞的毒性作用。结果反映苏丹I暴露破坏纺锤体组织和染色体排列以及皮质肌动蛋白分布，从而导致极体挤出失败。根据转录组结果发现，Sudan I的暴露导致764个基因的表达发生变化。此外，进一步反映了Sudan I的破坏作用是通过破坏线粒体功能介导的，从而诱导积累的ROS刺激氧化应激诱导的细胞凋亡。作为一种内源性激素，卵泡内的褪黑激素通过有效抑制氧化应激来改善卵母细胞质量和女性生殖。而且，体外培养。与这些一致，我们发现体内补充褪黑激素可有效抑制线粒体功能障碍和伴随的细胞凋亡，从而逆转卵母细胞减数分裂的恶化。总的来说，我们的结果证明了苏丹 I 对苏丹 I 的生殖毒性降低了卵母细胞质量，并证明了褪黑激素对苏丹 I 诱导的减数分裂恶化的保护作用。